Category: Uncategorized

A lot of outrage regarding the White House statement about the Turkish journalist Khashoggi’s murder. Understandably so. I suppose. And I’ll explain the “I suppose” part. Khashoggi, who, as I understand, is a distant cousin of the arms dealer with the same last name, who became an almost household name in the eighties in India around Bofors. The statement itself is is “incoherent, moronic and imbecilic” as one commentator pointed out, or as the chess Grandmaster turned crusader for civil liberties Gary Kasparov tweeted: “Lowering the bar even when it seems impossible is Trump’s superpower.” All that is true. The statement truly reads like it was written by Trump himself and not one of his lackeys. Or written by one of lackeys so it sounds exactly like he wrote it. For example, it starts off in his typical style, with liberal use of exclamation points and fear mongering : “America First! The world is a very dangerous place!” and so forth.

As for the content and message of the statement, if one were to try and draw one, Samantha Power put it best “An abomination that will define the ignorance, corruption, cruelty and recklessness of this presidency for generations to come” Yes, yes I know; Obama appointee, so what possible credibility could she possibly have? Harvard professorship and Pulitzer prize notwithstanding. Power, who by the way, has written a realistic, if scathing account of the United States’ refusal to act in the face of genocide in the twentieth century. No president is excused , Democrat or Republican in her book The Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. The most striking aspect, though, of Trump’s statement is the acknowledgement that “maybe he and maybe he didn’t!” but there’s not a damn thing we’re going to do about it. Note the liberal sprinkling of exclamation points.

For people outside the United States following this, it all feels, as an American of Russian descent once pointed out to me; “two faced”. The list of dictators and human rights abusers the United States has backed because it is in her own foreign policy interests (as perceived at the time anyways), is long and depressing. Remember “He may be a sonofabitch but he’s our sonofabitch”? We don’t have to look that far back into the past either. The hypocrisy of Barack Obama, the darling of liberals everywhere including me, lecturing Indians (a well deserved lecture I might add) on the importance of treating women the right way, but uttering not so much as a word against, yes, no other country but Saudi Arabia. Not one peep out of his mouth, let alone a rebuke. Because, as one knows, the Saudis are models when it comes to women’s rights and equality. On the same visit where he made a stop in Saudi Arabia. Or as he silently watched a democratically elected Morsi being ousted by Sisi without so much as a protest.

All this is to say that the United States backing dictators or human rights abusers when it suits our foreign policy interests is nothing new. And in this case, there’s so much more involved. Much more than petty abuse of rights and that small, rather inconsequential thing about the basic founding principles of these United States and what the country should stand for. There’s a lot more at stake here. Money. Billions of dollars worth of arms the Saudis buy from us. Even so, there is something terribly disturbing about the supposed leader of the free world coming out and saying that we really don’t care what a regime does as long as they are on our side. It is just one way this president erodes the sanctity of the office. Yes, I know Clinton didn’t hesitate to pull down his pants for a blowjob right in the Oval Office but whataboutism is something I have little patience for these days. It is just one more way of normalizing what would be inconceivable under another president. But this is what his supporters want and he promised he would do. Straight talk. Cut through the bullshit. Why even make the pretense of outrage when in reality we won’t really do much, if even anything at all about it.

If you would be so kind as to indulge me while I take this latest outrage and try to tie it to a larger point about impeachment. Every new outrage from this man intensifies the chatter about impeachment, more so since the Democrats took the control of the House. It won’t happen, at least as it looks now. I personally believe that he should’t be impeached. I would like for him to be impeached but I do not believe he should be. Like it or not, he was legitimately elected as president. Agree or not with the electoral college and the system that lets a man losing the popular vote by almost three million votes to be elected president, he was elected president under the law of the land. Our best chance is to grit our teeth and ride this out for another two years and hope this time the Facebook activists posting #NotMyPresident actually show up and vote. And keep stress testing the system of “checks and balances” that the founders supposedly put in place to check abuse of executive power. As the former GOP presidential hopeful and the Governor of Ohio John Kasich said, and I’m paraphrasing: “When you’re on a plane, you want the pilot to do well.” Plus even if against all prevailing odds, we do manage to get this man impeached it plays directly into his hands.

And please, we need to stop with this notion of “we have never been this divided in our history”. Remember that small skirmish in the nineteenth century that almost tore the Union apart? When the total number of dead exceeded the American deaths in all foreign wars combined that America has fought in? Or the late sixties and that great champion of civil liberties, George Wallace, declaring; “Segregtion now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever”? The man that ran for president on a segregationist platform and declared “Stand Up for America”? Sound familiar? No? How about “America First”? I think I can make a case that this isn’t the most divided we have ever been. And all of us liberals need to stop screaming bloody murder every time DJT opens his mouth. All it does is normalize the outrages he perpetrates that cause real and lasting damage to the office and the republic.

Here are some of the arguments I’ve heard opposing the recent verdict by the Supreme Court of India allowing women entry to Sabarimala. I’ll break them down one by one.

Its a clear case of judicial overreach. These things take time and will have to happen gradually, organically from within the society itself. Rather than imposing something from the outside, the affected society should bring about this change by having conversations among themselves. Bullshit. Lets turn the clock back and discuss the rights of Dalits to enter temples as and when they please, in presence or not of a person of upper caste. Lets hypothetically say there will be no law providing equal rights to Dalits because, you know, that right would violate the religious sensibilities of the majority of upper caste Hindus. Let that change happen organically too. Yeah. Not holding my breath on that.

But the constitution provided for equal rights for Dalits. This is an arbitrary law passed by a handful of activist judges. Granted. To a degree. But the constitution wasn’t some piece of work that magically appeared from nowhere. It was a document, and a set of laws drafted and passed by, yes, you guessed it right, people. Oh, and by the way, headed by a man, much respected (at least outside the bigot circle) today but reviled in his time. Don’t believe me? Read Annihilation of Caste by B.R. Ambedkar to get a sense of how reviled he was by upper caste and really most Hindus that weren’t “untouchables” and the level of animosity between him and Gandhi.

Speaking of arbitrary laws, how about we strike down another arbitrary one that decriminalized gay sex in India. A law to strike down a law to strike down a law that was passed to strike down a law.

But so many women’s groups are protesting this decision. And your point is? I can also find groups that go by “Blacks for Trump, “Hispanics for Trump”, “Minorities for Trump”, and I’m almost positive if I looked carefully enough even find a “Immigrants for Trump” group. The two topics are unconnected you say? The point is that this is the Sabarimala version of “but I have a black friend so I cannot be racist” argument. Again, calling bullshit on that.

But what about Muslims not allowing women to pray alongside men in mosques? Might I respectfully suggest that if we are going to look to an Abrahamic religion for practices to emulate lets look a little further and find one that isn’t famous (or infamous) for subjugating women? Just a little further. To about six hundred years or so earlier. Also, whatabout-ism is not an argument. It’s a disease more and more reasonable people seem to be suffering from these days but not an argument.

“They” get to do whatever “they” want because you guys appease minorities. We poor Hindus have to bear the brunt of your liberal progressive ideas by compromising on our religious beliefs. Hindus are the real victims here. Yeah. Hindu’s are victims in India (especially Modi’s India) just like rich white men are victims in Trump’s America.

You have to be a Malayalee to understand where we’re coming from. Yeah. Ok. I’d also have to be Arab to understand why men in that part of the world insist on putting on their women a full body, face covering armor with a tiny opening for the eyes . Closer to home I was told that to really understand Jallikattu and what it means to Tamil “culture” I’d have to live in Tamil Nadu. Growing up part of your life in Tamil Nadu and spending months of summer vacation there wouldn’t do. You have to go to and live in the villages specifically. Remember Jallikattu? Seems like decades ago but it’s only been over a year or so if I recall correctly.

Women in Kerala are empowered. That’s why we don’t care so much about this. It’s only outsiders that are stirring up trouble. Do you know there are temples in Kerala where men aren’t allowed to enter? Yeah, ok. Granted Kerala is a progressive state and women are definitely more empowered there than most of the rest of the country, All of it possibly. As I understand there’s a certain community in Kerala where children even take their mothers’ last name instead of their fathers’. Even so you can’t tell me that the traditional practices used to discriminate against women don’t happen at all or that they happen in such negligible numbers so as to be considered non-existent. That Kerala is somehow inoculated from this scourge that affects the rest of the country. Not buyin’ it. Oh, and it does sometimes take an outsider to point out the wrongs that for centuries have been normalized because “thats how its always been done and we’ve made peace with it”. So the “please don’t stir the pot unnecessarily with your liberal progressive nonsense because you don’t understand our culture” line doesn’t work. Sorry. No can’t do. People like me will stir the pot constantly when it comes to liberal progressive ideas. If you don’t like it please make cogent arguments.

The last one and this is the best: “This has nothing to do with how post pubescent and pre menopausal women are a polluting influence and have been treated over the years in India. Ayyappa is a celibate god. He took a vow never to marry and went to Sabarimala. That’s why women in reproductive stages of their lives should not enter Sabarimala.” Child please! He’s a god, isn’t he? You said so yourself. I’m sure he doesn’t need help from us earth dwelling mortals to stay celibate. If he’s still celibate, and pardon the irreverence (reiterating irreverence, not disrespect) here, I feel for the guy. I mean can you imagine the number of times he’s had the “what the hell were you thinking?” conversation with himself? Sorry but I’m inclined to believe must have this figured out by now. Plus I’m willing to bet five bucks that there have been other acts you as humans have engaged in that he’s been disappointed by more. Acts that are probably far worse than allowing women to enter a temple.

Ok, this is the last one. Not so much a refutation but a reiteration. Religious beliefs have been used to perpetrate some of the most egregious acts of discrimination against groups of underprivileged people throughout history. In fact religious beliefs were used to justify the most heinous of these acts that man has ever perpetrated against fellow man: slavery. Closer to home they have been used as an excuse to deny all manner of civil rights (and in many cases human rights) to underprivileged classes like Dalits. The premise on which denying women of a certain age entry to a temple is rooted in such misogyny that it should be an affront to every decent free thinking human being. Liberal or not. Woman or not. Anyone justifying otherwise to keep these archaic institutions in their calcified forms are just arguing semantics.

The Economist, in this remarkable obituary for Khushwant Singh wrote that he was India’s Gadfly. To say that I do not possess the stature, intellectual heft or the erudition of one of twentieth century, post colonial, independent India’s most accomplished writers would be stating the so obviously obvious that it would border on the ridiculous. I can, however, aspire to be a gadfly of much smaller proportions. There’s nothing quite like a trip back home to be reminded of all the questionable things that we Indians do. Customs from hundreds, some thousands of years ago that have no relevance in the twenty first century blindly being followed because that’s how its always been done. The bigotry that is so woven into the social fabric that acts of discrimination against certain groups of people are just part of how things are done and nobody questions them. Because, you know, who wants to disturb the decorum of a religious ritual? And to what end? You’re not going to change this by yourself, relax, I’m often told.

I am critical (some would say overly) of the place of my birth, specifically the customs and traditions, much to the chagrin of several of my fellow countrymen. As an aside, an American friend had once asked me how come now that I’m American I still refer to anything Indian as “us” or “ours”? I mean, shouldn’t it be “them” and “they” and “theirs”? I told him that’s one of the perquisites of being a first generation immigrant to a country that’s not of your birth. You get to double dip. I get to refer to both India and America as “us”, “mine”, and “our”. Returning back on point, the closer one is to someone or something, the more one feels strongly about the flaws I suppose. As an example, I see so many of my own flaws amplified in my ten year old that many of the good things he does almost always get overshadowed in my own mind.
Another example comes to mind when the news of the Delhi rape broke a few years ago. I saw post after social media post by several of my fellow people of Indian origin lament how the west and the media is only interested in showing things when they’re bad in India. Why not show this or that they asked? About the booming economy. About the culture and the beauty of the land. Its been a common lament of most Indians for a long time now, anytime a story breaks that shows India in a poor light. Slumdog Millionaire winning all those Oscars was a conspiracy by the west to perpetuate the stereotypes of India as a poor and starving nation. Never mind that Bombay has the largest slums in the world. Never mind that if one were to look closely — on a day that’s not smog covered — from the twenty seven story mansion of one of the richest men in the world and the richest man in India, one would see that it overlooks one of the largest slums in the world. Of course, in all these discussions I had to take it upon myself to argue about what is wrong with that attitude.

Yes, I had to bite my tongue every time someone asked me “Have you watched Slumdog Millionaire?” Or every time someone made a remark about Indian men not respecting women and so forth. In fact I have, once at a work gathering, had a couple of women who had clearly consumed more than their fair share of the free booze that was on offer, come up to me and ask me: “Do you like women?” To which I, trying to make one of my poor jokes said “Of course I do, all kinds too. Don’t tell my wife though.”
It was then that the other woman asked me: “No. Do you respect women? Do you think they are your equal?” I was taken aback by the questions and the self righteous interrogative style specifically that all I could mutter was “Yes, yes I do. Of course I do.” After a minute or so of letting that conversation sink in I realized how offensive it was. That two women, white in this case, would look at a brown man and automatically assume that, at best, he thought women weren’t his equal or at worst, was a misogynistic wife beater. But then I had to look only a tad deeper and introspectively to realize that that question would have been legitimate for many Indian men. One of my fellow countrymen was outraged that an American colleague refused to go to India in the wake of the Delhi rape news citing personal safety concerns. Its a small price to pay I say, bruised sensibilities, for the awareness that the news of such atrocities create and movies that highlight such stark realities.

Enough about the bad things. I was sitting in an airplane about thirty thousand feet above the ground when I looked out the window and it occurred to me that from that vantage point there really wasn’t as much of a difference between what I see when I fly cross country on an American airliner. Of course when I’m flying over American airspace, I can, given I know my source and my destination, at any given point look out the window, and with generally decent accuracy tell you that at this moment we are, say flying over, Baton Rouge Louisiana or Albuquerque New Mexico, or Cleveland, OH and Lake Erie. Something that I can’t unfortunately say about flying over the country of my birth. Its probably the perspective that the vantage point, albeit much higher, from the moon, provides that prompted the astronaut Edgar Mitchell to remark:
“You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.”

It was that perspective from the airplane that led me to wonder if there was another country in the world where at the crack of dawn one could hear the Venkatesa Suprabhatam by the illustrious and late M.S. Subbulakshmi playing in your own house while at the same time the muezzin’s call to azaan is heard from the loud speaker of the local mosque. And if one heard really carefully, possibly a rendition of KJ Yesudass’ Ayyappan Padalgal, paens to a Hindu deity by a Christian man, — Yesu = Jesus, Das = Servant/Follower, so literally the follower of Jesus — emanating from a radio in the neighborhood potti kadai. If there was any other place where I would find a man like the driver on one of my trips, a self professed “strict Hindu”, who goes to the the local church (Anthoniyar Kovil) every Tuesday and has a little statuette of the Virgin Mary on his dash as a good luck charm. If there is such a place I’m yet to hear of or visit it.
So far so good with the religious diversity. My hometown of Hyderabad has a substantially large Muslim population, so what I’m about to narrate happens every single time and riles me up like nothing else. Because of the substantially large Muslim population, at any given point one is never too far from a mosque, especially if one lives closer to the city and not in the suburbs. Sure enough when all of us are gathered at the table late afternoon for the afternoon chai the muezzin’s call for azaan will be heard. Inevitably, against my wanting to believe that it wont happen this time. Maybe just this time, no one will make a disparaging comment about how “annoying” it is for them to have to hear that five times a day. It usually comes from a person that means no harm and is otherwise probably one of the nicest persons you’ve ever met but it comes inevitably. That usually sends me into a frenzy of argument and lectures that the others on the table roll their eyes at. It is usually at this point that I’m reminded that I don’t live in India and don’t know what the ground realities are about how “these people” conduct themselves, so I obviously have to no idea what I’m talking about. Which sends me into a further mental tailspin because the topic will inevitably turn to how those benefiting from affirmative action policies for the lower castes oppressed for centuries are abusing the system and how most of “these people” convert to Christianity just for a few hundred rupees and so forth. No one ever answers me when I ask them about the irony of a bunch of upper caste privileged Hindus sitting in their air conditioned living room discussing how “these people” should go about bettering themselves. You know, because the life experiences and viewpoints of upper caste privileged Hindus that didn’t grow up in abject poverty or being discriminated against is the same as the ones that did. No one ever answers me though, when I ask why the word “Bhangi” or “Madhiga” is used as an insult if we live such a post-caste society. Don’t we get all riled up when some white people on Fox News claim that there’s no such thing as racism?
To mimic the style of the great philosopher king Yoda; long winded I am getting so I’ll stop now.
Thanks for reading.
Lakshman Hariharan
11/10/18 Prosper, TX.

On a recent trip to India I picked up the book that forms the title of this post. The book was written by Jawharlal Nehru as a series of letters to his daughter Indira during the summer of 1928. My boys seem to not read as much so in an attempt to have them imbibe some of the knowledge I decided I would record podcast episodes as short audio clips they can listen to. Perhaps some other parents would see some value in it and play it for their children….
I am loth to hearing my own voice on any form of media so if it grates on you, apologies in advance.

Part I. Maybe a part II follows, maybe not. Need to buy a notebook first if it were to.

Before anyone from the west reads this and takes it as my disparaging views on India. Please keep in mind I was born and raised there. So use this as a forewarning if you will, before you plan a trip and want to see the real India. Or anything westerners call “third world” for that matter. Do yourself a favor and find someone like me that you know is from India and has family there. Actually, better yet and more accessible to most, watch Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown. All thirteen seasons of it to get a sense. It’s all romantic until one has to slum it out with us natives in the second class train compartment. You can’t just show up in India like you would in Paris or Rome and have a great experience. India is like James Joyce’s Ulysses. Its painful, its excruciating at times, maddening most of the time but if you stick with it (and why would I want to, one may ask?) you will be rewarded. To the question “why would I want to?” I can only say, you don’t. There’s plenty of places in the world you don’t have to be sitting in a room with no electricity typing away on a laptop your views the first three days you’ve been really back after a long hiatus.

The first thing that hits you as someone else, Mark Tully I believe wrote, are the smells and the heat. The smell of raw sewage, sweaty bodies beaten down by life and the heat, humidity, the dust, and of course the glorious smell of food. And this in a town at the foothills of the Nilgiri Mountains that forms part of the famed Wesetrn Ghats of India.
So here are some observations on my three days here thus far, in no particular order.

Indian expatriates in the west, especially in the US get their noses all upturned at how these people hold minimum wage jobs and can’t afford the Christmas presents they buy for their loved ones but yet go into so much debt every holiday season. Yeah. I thought of that when I was sitting in a store chock full of Kumaran Thanga Maligai and Sridevi Silks Deepavali shoppers as the mother and aunt were shopping for some clothes that ancient customs dictate need to be bought for the close ones of a recently deceased relative: mother, daughter, sisters sisters in law, granddaughter etc. The ancient customs that dictated that (Manu shastra maybe) and likely have no bearing or meaning in modern life as we know it in 2018.

Speaking of useless ancient customs. One other contraption I’ve seen south Indian people wear is the ubiquitous molathadu. The word literally means in Telugu, string worn on the waist. The only damn practical implementation of the thing I could ever think of was back in the day when the ol’ veshti was the de facto clothing of choice for most south Indian men. When it could be used to secure the veshti because the western concept of a belt hadn’t yet arrived in India. That or some supernatural powers in that string that helps with performance down there. Although, I have to say, I haven’t worn one since I was, I think six and I can’t put any diminished performance in that department specifically to have not worn the molathadu. You’d have to check with the wife on that though. Because, like most Indian men I have only been sexually active with one woman and the poor woman has nothing to compare against. So I must be the best because I’ve been the only one. So when I see tens of children of south Indian descent dutifully wearing their speedos or swim trunks taking swim lessons at the Frisco, TX public pools with said molathadu secured above their speedos or swim trunks, I wonder. I wonder what that thing is for. I’m ever more convinced it has to do with being well endowed or not down there. I would know, trust me.

Of course the guy that was fine waiting in line all the way from Dubai to Chennai all of a sudden found his Indian-ness and cut the line while three of us were waiting in the customs line. Until I called him out and asked:

“Hey! Where are you going? You see the three of us here? Standing in line? Got here before you? Why’re you special?”

He goes “Oh I thought she called my name.”

“Oh she did. Did she now? How does she know your name? Last I checked you were holding your passport and she just said “NEXT”.

All he could do was roll his eyes and go “You go saar please”. To which I said “I don’t need to go anywhere first. See that gentleman? He was here first. So thanks for standing in line.”

Then there’s the kid. I mean kid is a relative term, getting frustrated because the ticket agent was taking a long time to change my ticket from MAA to CJB from 6:00 the following morning to 11:00 the night before. Because, god help me, I was trying to make doubly sure I could make my uncle’s funeral. A man that was like an older brother to me. I looked him square in the eye and said “Dude, I’m sorry its taking a while.”
To which he replied “I am going to miss my engagement tomorrow.”

I couldn’t hold my sarcasm any longer and said “Well, someone died. So you think that’s a real emergency?”

What I wanted to say was this:

I’m sure if there’s a poor girl out there that’s waiting to be engaged to your esteemed self she’ll wait a day longer. So hang tight my friend. You’ll get to Kolkata eventually. And if that poor unsuspecting girl still wants to marry you, she’ll be waiting.

Let me stop before my curmudgeonly self negates all the good vibes and positive thoughts my previous post generated where I paid tribute to a man that was like an older brother to me.

Thanks for reading if you still are after this.

Lakshman Hariharan
Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu 10/19/18

P.S. This is news to most Indian men I know. The condoms they sell as “large” out here are really medium small elsewhere. So make what you will of that when you turn up your nose on the other culture-less people.

My heart is heavy. They’re dropping on me, people I love, one after the other and there’s not a damn thing I can do. There’s a method to this madness I suppose. God works in mysterious ways they tell me. Words,the ones that usually come easy are deserting me in this state of mind I cannot justifiably explain.

The first early season tender coconut water, the soanpapdi from the jingle jangle push carts with those treasures under that magical plexiglass — and often times real glass ones, at least the vendors that were worth their salt — egg shaped dome. You’d hand the vendor 25 paisa and he would slide that small door to the dome to the side and give you a few ounces of that fluffy melt in your mouth magic in a piece of old newspaper. The piece of sweet would be gone in less than the time it took to get it from the newspaper to your mouth. None of the hardened ghee infused pistachio and saffron enhanced flavors for these guys. Only the real stuff, just as god intended them to be eaten. Then we waited again, for the next vendor to show at the street. The soanpapdi so sweet and colored such a pristine white that until I grew to be twenty four and saw real snow that was I assumed snow looked (and tasted) like. One could get a small ice cream cone’s worth wrapped in a torn piece of old newspaper, even the boiled nalakadalai wrapped in small pieces of newspapers or elandhavadais, the cambarcats, the bus rides in the #5 bus from Gandhipuram. The Lakshmi vedis and the bottle rockets, the scrounging of unexploded crackers from the night before the day after Deepavali…I could go on and on.. The first ‘gedda”, one of those paper planes made of color paper that would instantly transport you to the stratosphere among the popular kids in the class.. Without Ramesh mama’s expertise I couldn’t even tear the papers the right way, let alone fly them. Growing up he was my role model for a few formative years. One just had to ask the question what I wanted to do when I grew up :“Work for MG Brothers Lorry service Obviously” came the pat reply. Because that’s where he worked. Until I grew up and decided to do see what career paths lay ahead, Ramesh Mama’s dabbling sounded perfect for an inquisitive young child. The stuff was exciting, one week he’d be fixing and selling Remington typewriters, another season he’d be a carpenter and it was furniture and interior décor. Then it was delivering and selling milk. In his inimitable style on that TVS Suzuki moped, with the lungi raised over his knees so it doesn’t get caught in the chains. Never a dull moment. I just followed whatever it is that he did because it was so cool. More than an uncle he was the older brother that I never had. His jaanvasam car was the fist one I rode the tailgate of and oh what a thrill it was.

Waiting to board my Dubai to Madras flight I walked into a duty free shop for things to buy for loved ones. My throat got lumpy and my eyes welled up when I realized that the only person I buy something for every single trip to India; someone I loved for to really have those things wont be around to enjoy them anymore.

My first Kamal padam, Rajini blockbuster, matinee, first show, second show. And the inevitable muttai -bajji (hiding it from my grandmother and other vegetarians in the family) right before walking into the Ganga Yamana Cavery theater, the Karpagam Complex. My sister and I (her more than I) grew up with our grandmother a few years of our childhood, in Coimbatore. And experienced the magic of summer vacations with the cousins, but Ramesh Mama’s bucktooth comedy routine beat anything that was on offer.

How can I forget the trip to Ooty where it rained and drank the best tea in the whole world under a cigarette stall and tree as a shelter? Ramesh mama, Mahesh, Uma Aunty, Achu and I. I still remember it like it was yesterday.

Those days our military man father had a distant, larger than life persona we never go to see except during family gatherings. When we did see him he had the aura of a military man and all the respect one instinctively felt in his presence

Ramesh mama and my mother’s mother, that strongest of strong matriarch of the family Kamala, had no strong financial means at the time but somehow managed to get me admitted into the best high school in the city by using the little influence he could, despite my grades and performance.

That was the kind of man he was and the man I aspire to be: reliable and always present for his family and siblings in particular. The rock that the family can lean on. I Know his sisters will terribly mourn him and there are no words in any language that can possibly assuage this incredible loss, All my mother had do was to make a call and he would drop everything, literally everything he was doing to be on her side to help no matter what the ask. We could count on him to take care of our mother like not even her own kids could. If she was traveling so much for an overnight trip he would be by her side helping her pack her bags. He shared a bond with his siblings and my mother especially that I am envious of and hope to emulate. I will always remember in my heart and carry to my grave your witticisms and spirit. The Vada Coimbatore station will miss you more than any of us. Rest in peace brother. You have no idea how much we’ll miss you especially Chitra, talking to you at least twice a day.

Everytime I look a bag for travel or every time I see that buck toothed smile I will have to suppress some tears,

Rest In Peace my friend and uncle. You lived a life most of us would be proud to have. A loving husband father, grandfather son and brother taken too soon from us.

As I’ve uttered this a few times, I’m writing this with a heart that feels its about twenty pounds heavier and is about to break into a million pieces so forgive the typos and the poor excuse of grammar. Thanks for reading.

Its a shitty business. War is. Last night I was reading Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell; his experiences on the front during the Spanish Civil War. The experiences that would go on to shape many of his views on totalitarianism in the future and eventually result in the modern classics Nineteen Eighty Four and Animal Farm. As I was reading it, for some reason my mind drifted to a trip my son and I took to Washington D.C. this summer. To Reagan airport specifically, where I saw, while waiting to board the plane, a man wearing a t-shirt that said:

Back to Back World War Champions

He was referring to America’s victories, in World War I and World War II I suppose. Both wars in which America played a decisive influence and without which it is certainly doubtful whether the allies would have been successful. It does behoove us to remember, though, that by the time the United States entered the war the Russians or the erstwhile Soviet Union rather, had lost untold millions. And the siege of Stalingrad was yet to follow. The total deaths of the Soviet Union in World War II are said to be 27 million. The British had been at war with Nazi Germany for three years before the United States officially entered the war. The combined death tolls for the United States and the United Kingdom? 800,000. While I am fully aware of the sacrifices made by that generation; that when the bugle call came, farm boys from Iowa, city hands from New York and young men of all stripes everywhere signed up to fight Nazi tyranny, it helps keep things in perspective and how the war is viewed in different parts of the world.

One other fact–and this is personal for me because of where I was born and raised — that also goes mostly unmentioned in any historical account of the war is the total number of Indians dead. 2.2 million. The tragic part? 2.1 million of those deaths were a direct result of famine caused by Churchill’s policies; when he thought it prudent to hoard food for the British troops on the front line. The even more tragic part? The stockpiles were overflowing with surplus grain that the troops didn’t need. Wheat and other grains that could have saved millions of lives. Food he refused to divert to famine stricken Bengal in spite of innumerable pleas from Indian leaders. Lives that were deemed inferior and thus dispensable by Churchill; the hero of the twentieth century in most Westerners’ eyes, the greatest Briton that ever lived, according to most Britishers.

While we are on the topic of World War II, if there is one work and only one work you will read about World War II to understand everything that happened leading up to, during and the end of the war — Versailles to Hiroshima — I would recommend The Winds of War and its sequel War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk. There is a character in that book; a German general who writes his memoir of the war while awaiting trial after the war. A book within a book. Kind of a loosely fictionalized version of The Rommel Papers. In that memoir the fictional general writes, of Hitler’s desire for lebensraum (living space) for his ever expanding Reich as he invaded Russia. The fictional general draws quite a compelling parallel about India being Britain’s lebensraum. “Russia is our India”, he writes, solely to be used for resources, the people; the inferior Slavic race as the Nazis considered them, for slave labor and the land for living space. Kind of like India was to Britain.

Returning to the gentleman in the t-shirt at Reagan airport; Kurt Vonnegut, in his wartime classic memoir Slaughterhouse Five writes that the only people who are enthusiastic about war are the ones that have never fought in one. That would explain why Cadet Bone Spurs has to rub one out every time he hears the word missile. So, I was irritated, that’s the best word I can use to describe my feeling, when I saw that man wearing that shirt and wondered to myself whether he had ever been to war ? If he has, then hasn’t he seen the misery wrought upon by it to be so naive? Perhaps he hasn’t. I have never been to war but as part of some service work I’ve been performing I have had the chance to visit a behavioral health clinic that houses many veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. Veterans makes it sound like they are old or at least middle aged men and women. The handful of men and women I met were mostly barely adults, in their early twenties, if that. They were all there partly for treatment for PTSD as a result of their deployments to Iraq or Afghanistan and partly for other issues.

The historian James McPherson, in his book on the Civil War Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era writes that a common refrain among confederate soldiers was that it was a rich man’s war but a poor man’s battle. That could probably be said of most wars I think. The singer songwriter Steve Earle, in his song Ben McCulloch, narrating (or singing) the story as a soldier in the confederacy under General McCulloch’s command, sings:

I killed a boy the other night
Who had never even shaved
I don’t even know what I’m fighting for
I ain’t never owned a slave

The song starts like this:

We signed up in San Antone, my brother Paul and meTo fight with Ben McCulloch and the Texas infantryWell the poster said we’d get a uniform and seven bucks a weekThe best rations in the army and a rifle we could keep

One of the most haunting poignant anti-war songs you will ever hear is the ballad The Band Played Waltzing Matilda, sung by Shane McGowan of The Pogues. Singing about an Australian conscript in World War I thrown into the hell that was Gallipoli he sings:

We were butchered like lambs at the slaughterJohnny Turk he was ready, he primed himself wellHe chased us with bullets, he rained us with shellsAnd in five minutes flat he’d blown us all to hellNearly blew us right back to AustraliaBut the band played Waltzing MatildaAs we stopped to bury our slainWe buried ours and the Turks buried theirsThen we started all over again

It continues:

Now those that were left, well we tried to surviveIn a mad world of blood, death and fireAnd for ten weary weeks I kept myself aliveBut around me the corpses piled higherThen a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over titAnd when I awoke in my hospital bedAnd saw what it had done, Christ I wished I was deadNever knew there were worse things than dying

And the concluding paragraph:

And now every April I sit on my porchAnd I watch the parade pass before meAnd I watch my old comrades, how proudly they marchReliving old dreams of past gloryAnd the old men march slowly, all bent, stiff and soreThe forgotten heroes from a forgotten warAnd the young people ask, “What are they marching for?”And I ask myself the same question

I would recommend one give a listen to that song, the Shane McGowan rendition. It brought a lump to my throat the first time I heard it. Gallipoli, incidentally happens to be the other great, acknowledged Churchill blunder.

So almost thirteen hundred words later, what is my point you ask? The one I started off with. War is a shitty business. And that no one in their right mind should be glorifying it.

It is becoming habitual for me to write about things I have no clue. Or to quote what David Letterman says of Dr Phil: “Here’s more advice” and thoughts, if I may add, “I pulled our of my ass”.

Couple of stories regarding women’s issues dominated the news cycle here in the United States in the past few weeks. First, and one that has largely petered out is Serena’s outburst at the US Open final and her crusade ,if you were to believe her supporters, against sexism. Before any women reading this take umbrage to my condescending use of the word crusade; as someone who contends that white folk don’t get to decide what is and isn’t racist, I fully agree that men don’t get to decide what is and isn’t sexist. It also goes without saying that those who say sexism in the work place doesn’t exist are just as full of shit as those that say there is no racism in our society.

A lot of overt acts of sexism in the workplace are probably rare these days, especially in the West, but they weren’t until a few years ago. Or to quote Jay Leno, since I’m apparently in the mood to quote comedians today; and this goes to everyone out there that laments the “PC culture”: “If it weren’t for political correctness we would still be throwing cat whistles” and slapping them on their rear ends, if I may add, ” at women in the workplace”. Are there instances of political correctness run amok? Absolutely. What with disinvited commencement speakers and such. But that doesn’t mean that the concept overall is to be lamented but that’s besides the point of this post.

I personally don’t think that Serena is some crusader against sexism in sports but I can definitely understand her being judged by different standards than those men are judged by. Several compilations of men throwing temper tantrums on the tennis courts with far less severe consequences have been making the rounds on my social media feeds so I’ll spare the reader that. Regardless of what one thinks of her crusade, to overuse that word, there is no doubt in my opinion that she was justified in taking exception to the harsh penalty imposed of one whole game.

Here are some of the overt and not so overt instances of sexism I have seen in the workplace:

Every time and I mean every single time I have had a woman boss, a male coworker has asked me “Is she hot?”. There are several things wrong with that but I’ll just say that no one has ever asked me whether my male boss was hot, but then I don’t have any gay friends, so take that for what its worth.

Referring to another coworker: “God she’s a bitch. I pity the poor sonofabitch that’s married to her.

or worse

“God she’s bein’ a bitch today. Time of the month again?”

Oftentimes when a woman gets promoted to a senior or an executive role:
“I’m sure she was fully qualified for the job and it has nothing to do with our diversity and inclusion policy”.
Never mind that despite making up half the population less than 20% of women make up the industry I work in, so even if I were to grant that the diversion and inclusion policy was at work somehow, there’s a long way to go for equality in the workplace. And what if it were indeed the diversity and inclusion policy at work? Isn’t that the whole point of diversity and inclusion?

“I don’t know how you can walk in those heels”

Well guess what you would’ve said if she did show up in say comfortable shoes?

“I can’t believe she showed up dressed like that.”

Enough about others, some of what follows are some times and situations I find myself suppressing my sexist instincts, and honest to goodness those happen subconsciously until I take a moment to realize what I’m doing. So here goes:

Whenever that shirt smells like it’s been left in the dryer in a half dry – half damp state for too long. My first instinct is to get irritated (and not at myself) as if it was somehow not my fault that the clothes were left in the dryer loo long in that state. It takes a split second to turn that blame around on myself.

That feeling of having accomplished something good the day I load the dishwasher and vacuum the house, half ass as the cleaning may be by most standards of cleanliness, and cook lunch and fold the laundry. To be clear, I don’t get that feeling of accomplishment when I do those individually or on separate days. I do when I do all in one day and I have to remind myself that my wife does that on most days. Or when I expect gratitude for having done all of that. As if I’m going above and beyond what is expected of me.

Taking “days off” from parenting. I have too much going on these past few days and I just want to relax. Guess what? She doesn’t get any days off from parenting. There’s only one other person to pick up my slack and that’s her. And guess who picks up her slack? No one.

Now these may just be me and my upbringing in a highly patriarchal and sexist society in India, or my general assholery but I do wonder how many men actually have these reactions or feelings. Among other things, why do I have to remind myself that I live in this house too and its supposed to be a shared responsibility?

I won’t even go into the other more overt acts of sexism or double standards by which women are judged when, for example, they break down or cry (“Oh here come the tears”), or women, working or otherwise, having to take the brunt of the responsibility at home. When a man does the former its him showing his vulnerability and that’s oh so commendable.

If you’re a woman reading this and have had to suppress the urge to pound that keyboard at my incredibly ignorant and prejudiced point of view, I apologize. And to everyone who read this, whether you pounded the keyboard or not, thank you.

Sincerely,
Your garden variety sonofabitch.
09/23/2018, Prosper, TX

P.S.: 1. The oxford comma gets a bad rap these days, but I’m a fan, as you can see.
2. I’m still learning the proper use of the semicolon and colon so bear with me.

**Update: A reader pointed out that I started off being condescending to Serena and her crusade but never explained why I was condescending. The reason is that over the years I’ve seen a lot of these tantrums from her and I believe it was just that. A tantrum. The media is so penchant on turning everything into a cycle that will be discussed for days not minutes that it results in stuff like this. Making a crusade out of a tamper tantrum.

One of the most interesting aspects of my job is that one week could find me in Anchorage, AK, the next in Los Angeles, CA and the week following that in deep Dixie. Places so diverse that they may well be on different continents. That is the greatness of this land where one can meet, enjoy cultural experiences and have conversations with people of so many cultures and countries. The next best thing to experiencing the cultures and having conversation in those places themselves. “A continent masquerading as a country” was the phrase used by my favorite publication to describe the country of my birth India. It is quite an apt description for my adopted country as well. Another, more interesting aspect is the people I get to meet. Now, I am not a very social person in my private life. Quite the opposite actually. As an example, consider this: My seven year old got so tired of my recluse of an existence that he took it upon himself to make friends in the neighborhood we live; because he probably (and rightly) figured that left to my own devices he would have no friends. When I introduced myself to one of my neighbors she said: “Oh yeah. We know who you are. You’re Arjun’s dad. He’s a great kid. He came over and played with our kids last week.”

I relate that anecdote only because it is odd then, that the interaction with people of different ethnicities is one of the most enjoyable aspects of my job. I am not a particularly gifted observer or conversation maker but I do like people watching. And when I meet someone new I try to find a common thread we can discuss. Something I know a little bit of but want to know more about. Say, discussing perestroika with someone of relatively recent Russian origin. Or discussing with someone from Iraq ancient Mesopotamia and the part the Euphrates and the Tigris played in bringing about the cradle of modern civilization; or Muqtada al-Sadr’s party winning a lot of seats in the the just concluded elections. Or asking a former Marine how it was visiting all those places and meeting all those different people when he was on active duty. He replied, and I found it funny, because I really enjoy dark humor : “Oh it was a lot of fun meeting new people….. And shooting them.” In all these conversations I broach something I think could be of common interest, never for once assuming I can completely understand their circumstances. Empathize? Yes Try to understand? Possibly. To know what exactly it was like? No. Because I may read about a certain topic and a certain place but it is no substitute for having been there and lived those experiences.

My experiences interacting with, or talking to people with diverse ethnicities are hardly unique and nor do I have any special ability to get people to tell their stories. Which means such interesting stories are everywhere waiting to be uncovered. Sometimes just showing that I am interested goes a long way in learning about people and cultures, which consequently enriches my life. It also gives me ammunition for the arguments against the bigots. So consider some of the other people that have, over the years, in no particular order as they are presented here, enriched my life and broadened my horizons:

Two Iraqi gentlemen who made their way to America by way of a special visa program, for which they were eligible in 2015 (or 2016) after working as IT technicians for the US Embassy in Baghdad for twelve years after the 2003 invasion.

A gentleman of Laotian descent who was brought here as a child by his parents fleeing the civil war in that country. I asked him, how of all places he ended up in Little Rock, Arkansas? He replied that his father, when asked by the US authorities where he would like to live in the States requested to live in a place that had all four seasons. So Little Rock is where they ended up.

A gentleman of Russian descent who arrived here around the same time as me, just around the time Boris Yeltsin, whose alcoholism was taking a toll, was getting ready to hand power over to Vladimir Putin who has ruled Russia since. This gentleman was a young adult during Gorbachev’s perestroika. He thought the topic dominating the news cycle; the Russian meddling in the 2016 elections was a “circus” and “two faced”. By the latter I presume he meant the United States’ foreign policy which has left untouched no continent in the world by installing dictators and gross human rights violators as long as they are our “allies”. As FDR said of Anastasio Somoza of Nicaragua: “He may be a sonofabitch but he is our sonofabitch.”
A quote that is attributed, likely apocryphally, sometimes to Kissinger, advising Nixon what to make of another other notorious abuser of human rights: Yahya Khan of Pakistan.

A Yonsei man whose Issei great grandfather had been interned in one of Roosevelt’s infamous camps during World War II; at the very time his Nisei grandfather had been fighting the Italian Fascists as part of the legendary 442nd Infantry Regiment.

A gentleman of Chinese origin in his late fifties who recalled what it was like to be a teenager during the terrible times of Mao’s Cultural Revolution and a young boy during the misery of the Great Leap Forward.

A German colleague who remembered, as a little boy, being told to be very quiet one night as his father and mother bundled him and his siblings into a car in the middle of the night to flee Communist Czechoslovakia.

A Jewish gentleman of Russian descent whose father had been a holocaust survivor and who, according to his own telling, on the very day of the coup against Gorbachev, at the very minute tanks were pointing their guns at the White House (the newer, less famous one in Moscow), was presenting his case to the visa official in the US Embassy in Moscow for asylum in the United States. He said that the visa official at the embassy took one look at his father’s application, commented on the tanks rolling in and said that there need be no explanation and that his visa was approved.

An African American gentleman who, like me, was an Army brat and spent most of his childhood in West Germany during the cold war.

A gentleman of Swiss origin whose girlfriend was from Dresden in former East Germany and bore some resentment about the reunification. He said she felt she was looked down upon by those from former West Germany and sometimes pined for the simplicity of those days, despite the conditions. She must be one of a very small minority of Germans that felt that way I would imagine.

Compared to all these stories, the humiliation of queuing up at the US consulate standing hours at a time in the muggy oppressive heat of Chennai (then Madras) for a student visa to be approved or rejected at the whim of someone likely with no more than a GED or high school diploma seems trivial. I realize that the part about no more than a GED or high school diploma comes across as incredibly demeaning to those that may not have had the same privileges and opportunities to get an education that I had when growing up, and I’m sorry for that. But that is exactly how I felt at the time. It is also the story of hundreds of thousands of other Indian immigrants who got here on a non-immigrant visa and decided to stay on to become green card holders and eventually citizens.

Why one may wonder I bring up these people and stories? Most of these people and stories have one thing in common: war, strife or turmoil in the mother country that led people to leave those countries in search for better opportunities for themselves and in some cases their families. There is also another common thread in all but two stories (of the German coworker and Swiss gentleman). After one of my work trips, sitting in an airplane going over the trip mentally, I chuckled to myself recalling the events of the week. I recalled that earlier in the week I was one of four people cooped up in a conference room over the better part of a week discussing cyber security strategies for a large hospital in the nation’s capital and none of us was American born. The others being the aforementioned Iraqi gentlemen and the gentleman of Russian origin. In other words, exactly the kind of people the current occupant of the White House and many of his supporters don’t want here.Exactly the kind of people to keep America as great as she already is. What exactly are we trying to make great again? And why? It doesn’t take an Einstein to figure out that it is code for Make America White Again. Even if with his “understanding of a fifth or sixth grader” intellect of a brain — a quote attributed to his former Secretary of Defense — managed to figure out what exactly Make America Great Again means, he can take his plan and stick it up his you know what. We don’t need the current occupant of the White House’s permission nor direction to keep America great. We’re doing it as we speak and have been at it for several years. Speaking of codes, I have another post, the content of which I originally included in this one but this is getting way too windy. So I decided to do a separate post on just what I have learned is code when someone wants to say something bigoted or racist but can’t overtly. That is to to follow at some future date and time.

Thanks again for indulging me if you made it this far.

Lakshman Hariharan
09/15/18, Prosper, TX.

P.S.: There is another common thread. The conspicuous absence of any women or people of Hispanic origin and only one African American in these conversations. Unfortunately, that is quite representative of the industry I work in. It is mostly male dominated, white and Asian at that, where women and other ethnicities are woefully underrepresented.

As far as words go, the n-word is likely one of the most offensive in the world. Right up there with the c-word employed while referring to a woman. Although the c-word seems more acceptable across the pond in ol’ England. That’s probably why when I heard a black person called the n-word on an airplane the other day I was shocked. It is more a reflection of the sheltered existence I have had perhaps but it was quite jarring to me. I have heard black people use that word among themselves, I’ve heard it on screen and in hip-hop lyrics but never to a black person’s face in real life. Not that I can recall anyways. I don’t suppose to know what some black folk mean when they say using the word among themselves takes the power out of it and whatnot and I certainly don’t pretend to know whether is is right or wrong that some black folk choose to use it among themselves. What I do know is that I can’t imagine how the woman it was used against felt. But then, it is quite likely that wasn’t the first time someone had called her a “fucking n***** bitch.” Now, what outrage this woman could have possibly perpetrated to be called such an offensive epithet you might ask. And that is a valid question. So allow me to explain.

This has happened to me before. I’ve ponied up the ten or fifteen dollars for in flight internet access and have had darned the thing not work. In fact the two trips right after I had signed up for the monthly plan (forty dollars per month no less) from one of the providers on a specific airline, the internet access didn’t work. The first time I called the flight attendant over to complain she simply said “We’ve had this problem all day today. We’ve complained but they haven’t fixed it.” That was that. She said she was sorry about the inconvenience, I said it wasn’t her fault and I resigned myself to the outrage of having no internet access, paraphrasing the comedian Louis CK, “while flying thirty thousand feet above sea level sitting in a comfortable chair” for a whole three hours. The poor choice for the source of my quote is not lost one me but that’s the most appropriate one I can think of. I don’t remember what happened the second time but it wasn’t anything eventful or worth remembering evidently. I canceled my subscription before the next billing cycle and moved on. I wish I could say that I have conducted myself this rationally, not having been a donkey’s ass every time in every frustrating customer service situation but I would be lying if I did.

I relate this story because this is exactly what happened last week, and coincidentally, it happened on a flight to the City of Angels like it had with me on those two occasions. This time the outrage was perpetrated against a man in a #23 Lakers jersey, apparently one so excited about LeBron’s arrival in Los Angeles that he couldn’t wait until the season began to buy the jersey. How the man’s sartorial sense, or the lack of it, has to do with any of this I do not know. But I do know this: Nobody wants to sit next to a man in a freaking basketball jersey on a cross country flight with nothing underneath showing all his disgusting armpit hair to the world. Certainly not with his arms raised above his shoulders behind his head the whole time. The man was frustrated that the internet he had paid for wasn’t working. The flight attendant tried to help him but obviously she wasn’t a technical expert and couldn’t help beyond what she’d been taught. Although she tried more than most. She asked him to make sure he is connected to the Gogo in-flight wireless network. She asked him to open the browser on his phone and go to the Gogo in flight website directly using the browser and a couple of other steps that could have helped. It is at this point that I heard the flight attendant say “Sir please do not talk to me like that.” The man said something else and the flight attendant went “Sir you are being incredibly rude. I will not be spoken to like that. This is when I heard, clear as day, him saying: “Just leave me alone you fucking n**** bitch.”

I heard it and so had a few others around us but no-one (myself included) said anything to the man or confronted him. To not be impolite I suppose. Just like the time I did not stand up and speak out against overt acts of caste discrimination by my own family members back in India. But this post isn’t about my cowardice. Speaking of not wanting to be impolite, what could possibly be more impolite and outrageous than using the most offensive racial slur against someone, no matter what the provocation, I do not know. What kind of decorum I was trying to maintain, do not ask me. My excuse, like that of many is that I do not quite have the right words and right response in the heat of the moment. I can think at least ten things I could have said after the fact but I find myself tongue tied and unable to respond at that very moment. The flight attendant, rightly outraged by what she heard, brought one of her coworkers and said “I’m not giving that man a single thing to drink or eat on this flight.” She also went on the intercom and spoke with the captain about what happened. A few minutes later another flight attendant came along with a piece of paper and explained something to the man. I presume it was some kind of warning or rebuke. Hopefully one that said he isn’t allowed to fly on any flight operated by that airline henceforth but I am not sure what it was and can only hope that is indeed what transpired. All I know was the man nodded defiantly that he understood what was being explained to him. The flight attendant was a bigger person than I could ever be and asked the man during drink service whether he would like some ice water. The woman was exceedingly polite to everyone else on the flight including myself. I do that myself sometimes. When I am in disagreement or have been outraged by someone’s comment in a gathering I go out of my way to be nicer to everyone else around. Just to prove a point that I’m not the asshole here. Although the flight attendant probably was just nice like that always.

While I was deplaning I had an impulse to stop by and tell her that I thought she was a bigger person than I and that I admired her poise and grace. That if she were ever to complain or otherwise pursue some sort of action as a consequence for this passenger I would do everything I could to be on her side. That here was my phone number and contact information. But I didn’t because I didn’t know how she would react. Or I told myself that anyways. Shoulda. Woulda. Coulda. The story of my life.
You’ve indulged me twice in a day so thank you again.

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